[center]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/ziR5Pse.png[/img]
[b][color=FD0000]wordcount:[/color][/b] 1,671 (+3)
[b][color=FD0000]Location:[/color][/b] Forbidden Kingdom - Shinjuku 
[b][color=SpringGreen]Bowser Jr: Level 15 [/color][/b] EXP: [color=SpringGreen]//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color](252/150)
[b][color=Aqua]Rika: Level 11 [/color][/b] EXP:  [color=Aqua]///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color](197/100)
[/center]

Bit by bit, the waterlogged bamboo forest diminished, getting smaller, sparser, and drier until the Koopa Kids had firmly put the fantastical realm in their Kuebiko's rear-view mirror. Nature soon gave way to the outlying suburbs of the modern metropolis whose skyscrapers loomed in the distance, an urban jungle unto themselves. Though built for all-terrain maneuvering, the metal attacker's tires were grateful for the transition to paved streets of the city's residential outskirts, and though now the youngsters found themselves obliged to obey traffic laws and signs in order to share the road with fellow motorists, it was smooth sailing into Shinjuku from here. 

[center][img]https://ravi64.com/content/images/size/w1200/2025/02/kamu_top.jpg[/img][/center] 

Once the youths entered the city proper, they quickly realized just how dense the place really was. People of all shapes and sizes flooded the sidewalks and streets, and the large, boxy buildings were packed tightly, their big, flashing signs competing for every inch of space. With not one modicum of real estate wasted, there couldn't possibly be any room to squeeze in anything else, but on the flipside, the city boasted just about anything one could imagine. There were stores specializing in just about every commodity, and outlets offering every variety of entertainment one could want, if one could find them, of course. With pretty much nowhere to park, especially given Kuebiko's size, the newcomers were better off finding somewhere to stash their vehicle and then proceeding on foot. An elaborate underground subway system spanned the whole city, but tickets would need to be purchased to ride it, providing one could decipher the tangled network of routes in order to figure out where to go. Though ultimately smaller and less populated than Midgar, Shinjuku was every bit as overwhelming as plates like Suoh, Veles, and Inkopolis--and every bit as amazing to wide-eyed youngsters like Junior and Rika.


Looking around, one had to wonder how such an enormous colony sustained itself in the World of Light, where every captive population depended on the lifelight rationed out by their Flame Clock. The inquisitive mind would find its answer in the form of certain blemishes all over the city. These took the form of huge, dark orbs, each surrounded by a corona of prismatic light, [url=https://i.imgur.com/j7HcFFX.jpeg]some so massive[/url] that they encompassed several city blocks. Various billboards and other signs talking about them referred to them as Hollows, and mentioned that they contained monstrous ethereals, whose populations endured despite regular culling by the HIA. Though referred to in the same way as natural disasters in terms of danger and preparedness, with a variety of PSAs offering tips if citizens got caught in them, they seemed to be a part of everyday life here. Citizens seemed to lived, worked, and slept within a few hundred meters of corrupt, warped space, never knowing if the distortion would grow enough to consume their homes tomorrow. Even in the face of such dangerous anomalies, it seemed, familiarity breeds contempt.

Nothing about this was familiar to the kids, that was for sure, and it was certainly going to make their quest to become masters of cassette based transformation a lot tricker. Still, that wasn’t going to dissuade them, and so after blocking traffic for long enough to send the Kuebiko back to the avenger the pair of kids disappeared into the crowd.

Then came bursting back out of it when they immediately lost track of each other, causing yet more congestion. 

[color=Aqua]”There, just, way too many people”[/color] Rika complained, to which her brother attempted to agree, only for his words to get drowned out by a car horn being honked at him due to the previously mentioned congestion causing.

Rather than put up with this, Rika got Jr to ride on her shoulders for a bit, before promptly using her Warframe granted mobility to walljump up the side of one of the city's smaller tall buildings till they were up on the roof, where they could actually talk without the sensory overload that was the big city. The open ocean or a sprawling pseudo-medieval kingdom it most certainly was not.

[color=SpringGreen]”I mean, we’re gonna have to go back down eventually, but we should work out a plan before we do that”[/color] Jr suggested, before glancing at his sister, or rather, more specifically, at her hands and rigging, and saying that [color=SpringGreen]”Plus maybe we should put away all the weapons. People were giving us weird looks about them, and no one seems armed, like, at all down there”[/color] 

She initially protested, she had basically zero practice fighting without her gauntlets after all, and what if they got into trouble? But after getting both of their (good) cassette beasts onto her person, she agreed that this would be fine. He’d poke battle, she’d transform. It’d all be fine.

[color=Aqua]”We should probably get some more recordings though some time. I like the ones we have, but more extra health bars would be good, right?”[/color] she suggested, to which Jr agreed, even if [color=SpringGreen]”I dunno if we’re gonna have much luck in this place though”[/color]

[color=Aqua]”Maybe in those? Whatever those ‘ethereals’ are are probably monsters, right”[/color] Rika suggested, pointing at the closest of the Hollows that they could see from their high rise perch. 

[color=SpringGreen]”Maybe. But we’ll wanna know more before just wandering into em”[/color] Jr replied before humming to himself while scanning the street below, and then spotting something down the road which he pointed out [color=SpringGreen]”Oh hey, we can use that!”[/color]

The thing he’d seen was a building called a [url=https://i.imgur.com/JWJ9xwb.jpeg]Zip Station[/url], which as it turned out was a combination of subway station, hotel, and internet cafe of all things. It was the latter of these features that Jr wanted, because why ask people about stuff when you could just look it up online?

Besides, it was lunch time, and the kids wanted a snack after their long nad bumpy ride over.

As it turned out, they weren't the only kids looking for lunch and internet time. After Rika (who was immune to fall damage) dropped down to street level with her brother held in her arms, and the two crossed the road while holding hands to not get separated, they found the cafe crawling with kids and teens of various ages, all being very noisy while using the computers. None more so than a [url=https://i.imgur.com/r77OgDl.png]girl[/url] who was apparently livestreaming herself playing matches of a monster volleyball game to a fairly significant audience. 

Her [url=https://i.imgur.com/Dd2pgkw.jpeg]colab partner[/url]’s energetic commentary coming out of the speakers (which consisted half of comparing the game on screen to pokemon battling and half of off topic banter) only added to the noise.

They weren't the only ones yapping away of course, just the most vocal. One [url=https://i.imgur.com/g5D5Hdo.png]rollarblade wearing kid[/url] was navigating the net with the help of an [url=https://i.imgur.com/V2oomby.png]Ai[/url] on his screen while chatting about how a big chunk of the virtual world was in the midst of collapsing into ruin (the start of which coinciding exactly with when the Seekers took down Midgar’s Guardian and put the whole city onto receive power) with his friends, both those sitting around him and those he was hanging with online.

Another quartet, one half with much more [url=https://i.imgur.com/Nt4NM0y.jpeg] grounded avatars[/url] than the [url=https://i.imgur.com/tQRl7dD.png]other half[/url] where busy battling with digital demons and monsters with their own teams of the same and getting pretty headed in the process. The large-scale flight of digital natives from Midgard’s crumbing netscape was apparently causing all sorts of chaos that these kids were a part of keeping a lid on, the stakes of which seemed to be quite high.  

All this noise wasn’t exactly fun, but it did mean that the spiky turtle prince and the dragon footed ship girl with glowing eyes didn’t get quite as many weird looks as they might have in a less boisterous establishment. Rika not being armed to the teeth and dressed head to toe in armor certainly helped, though there was no escaping the pair of oversized gauntlets strapped to her back given they were helping her walk on land.

The elderly proprietor didn’t give them any (visible) looks at all however, mainly because he was strapped into a [url=https://i.imgur.com/4w77jiT.jpeg]vr headset[/url] which obscured his eyes. This didn’t get in the way of him serving them however, and soon enough the pair were set up with an account, an AI assistant (which were known as NetNavi) of their own, tab for their internet usage, and a small bevy of cakes, sandwiches and more to munch on as they surfed the net.

This turned out to be a little more complicated than expected, given that this involved navigating a 3d environment with optional vr support, but fortunately their new NetNavi (called [url=https://i.imgur.com/SurhW98.png]Seek[/url]) was more than happy to fill Jr in on how to navigate the virtual world that constituted the local internet. Or at least the version of the local internet that the cafe was set up to access. The boring webpage based internet was also available, but where was the fun in that?

As Jr busied himself with this, Rika snacked and watched over his shoulder, before she remembered a promise they’d made, and proceeded to press a finger to her ear and try to use her link pearl in order to fulfill it. It hissed and crackled as it tried to connect over the long, tree/bamboo filled distance between them and the rest of the seekers, before it finally connected. 

Poorly.

This was somewhat expected, given they’d been getting the other team’s banter in increasingly poor quality while traveling over. As such, she made sure to talk slowly and clearly to make sure the connection wasn't an issue.

Instead it was the background noise that was the issue instead.

[color=Aqua]”Hi! This is Rika! Hope you all got that sign up sorted out. We’ve made it to Shinjuku just fine. It's a big place. Noisy. But seems to be safe outside of the giant black voids eating up bits of the city. Trying to work out what those are now. Gonna see if we can find out about the local tape stuff. Might head back to the Av… the secret base afterwards if we’re here til night time”[/color]